I have 472 followers, having gained a fair number in the past two months. That’s 267 more than last year. Most of them are people who have stuff to sell. Some are not; we’ll see if more actually participate; few do, and I greatly appreciate their contributions.

I’ve had about 47,500 views, roughly 17,000 in the past 12 months, but far fewer visitors (the darker bars). I kind of care about those, but many are obviously just taking a quick look and moving on.

Here’s my stats on the views broken down by month.

Numbers are difficult for some to process, so here’s a chart tracking views per month.

I’ve had 6,819 comments at the writing of this post, and I care more about those as that’s people interacting . . . except that number is misleading since pingbacks are counted as comments, so it’s probably closer to about 4,500 comments.

What do people come to visit and comment on most?

This is not a very useful listing because someone that comes to the blog can read the posts by scrolling down and reading one after another. Those visits are listed as “Home Page/Archive”, so I don’t really know which posts they were looking at because it depends on the day. Since the beginning of February I’ve been posting mostly two posts (or more) a day, so it also depends at what time of day they looked.

Regardless, you will note none of my fiction is listed there. Worse yet, some are not listed at all; here is the bottom of the list:

The chart does not go below 25 views (??), and since I can search by title, I know many of my favorite pieces are not anywhere in the summary.

WordPress does not provide a complete summary for the comments; all they give you is the stats based on the last 1,000 comments:

As one can see, one does not need to comment often to make the list.

And where do all the viewers come from? Well, WordPress only started tracking where visitors came from in February of 2012, and since then the majority of visitors are from the US, which stands to reason since I am in the US and I write in English. These are all from last night, as I wanted to have the data ready.

It would be neat to completely fill in the country map (hint, hint).

Here are the countries that don’t visit much, but at least have stopped by.

Now, here’s the interesting thing with those numbers . . . 1.3Billion people in China, and not a one stopped by my blog. Dang!

That is all I can gleam from WordPress . . . I wish they would allow Google Analytics, as those stats are more extensive. Unfortunately, they don’t.

BUT WAIT!! ClusterMaps does not agree with the numbers, and they break it down a bit more. You can go look at it on your own HERE, but here are a few snapshots

They track unique visits (21,049 since March of 2012), and that’s how I estimate actual visitors as opposed to views. Here are the US visits broken down by state (Californians must really like my stuff!)

The US was the top country, but here are the rankings for other countries (and they do show China):

. . . and the bottom countries . . .

The “1” views are somewhat bothersome . . . that’s a lot of countries who looked at my blog and said “nah”, never to return again. Some I can understand, but Liechtenstein? . . . I thought I was big in Liechtenstein!

ClusterMaps gives you the visuals as well; I’ll only show a few regions.

I used to get demographics for my blog through QuantCast, but something has changed and I don’t have the time to look into it . . . too bad because the information was interesting. As far as I can tell, WordPress no longer uses them, and I would have to get ‘quantified’ . . . a quick search seems to indicate you can’t do that on these free blogs.

While I don’t have the breakdown of demographics, I do have an approximate ranking for the blog from Alexa:

I suppose I can either be disheartened I’m in 11,914,444th place, or happy that I’ve moved up nearly 8.5 million spots in my ranking in the past 30 days. I don’t know how or why, but that’s something, anyway.

Google also offers a Page Rank based on a number of factors. Out of a possible score of 10, this blog rates . . .

That does not sound too bad . . . until I check this:

Google itself does not get a 10, and I am a long, long, long, long way from getting the number of views Google gets.

There are a lot of sites that calculate ranks, so I decided to use one that aggregates a lot of information, and checks how much my blog is worth (Blog Calculator).

Of course, my blog is worth a lot more than that to me, and not only as an outlet for my creative urges, but also as a point of contact with people I would otherwise have never met (figurative ‘met’, not literal).

I want to thank all the regular visitors to my little slice of the Internet, and also all the people who pass by and poke their heads in to see what’s happening here. I plan to be around a while longer and to maybe one day break the 10 millionth ranking.

Note: if you are not reading this blog post at Disperser.Wordpress.com, know that it has been copied without permission, and likely is being used by someone with nefarious intention, like attracting you to a malware-infested website. Could be they also torture small mammals.

<><><><><><><><o><><><><><><><><><o><><><><><><><>

Please, if you are considering bestowing me recognition beyond commenting below, refrain from doing so. I will decline blogger-to-blogger awards. I appreciate the intent behind it, but I prefer a comment thanking me for turning you away from a life of crime, religion, or making you a better person in some other way. That would mean something to me.

14 Responses to Thoughts on Four Years and Twelve Days

Congratulations on your anniversary! A lot of people think it’s really amazing if a comment they make on Facebook gets a response…. well, a pleasant one not produced by a troll, anyway. By that standard, seems to me that you are reaching some people who actually enjoy reading what you write and seeing the photographs you take. That seems to be a very positive thing, and deserves a little applause. So here’s me, applauding.

You seem to have a lot of visitors from other than English speaking countries. and that’s usually a good sign for a blog written in English. I noticed for instance that I am not the only visitor you have from Norway. Congratulation on your anniversary Disperser and keep up the good work my young friend :-)

I don’t know how the country views compare to other blogs. These days it’s a lot easier for people to see blogs from around the world just by looking at the reader and choosing “photography” or “waffles”. The readers picks everything related that has just posted, regardless of location.

That probably promotes more cross-border views than it otherwise might.

Congratulations, bro, on a job well done . . . as in gathering and presenting all the above info (very interesting) and posting all that great stuff. I, too, hope that you’ll be around for a while longer since I’ve come to depend on this blog for my natural beauty fix (as in addiction) and the humorous narrative/comments. So here’s a toast to you that is apropos:
“Use what talent you possess:/ the woods would be very silent/ if no birds sang except those that sang best.” — Henry Van Dyke

I wonder if the lack of visitors from China has something to do with the internet restrictions there. Congratulations on a very prolific blogging rate. Only a small percentage of visitors to blogs leave comments, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t enjoy what they found.

What a lot of statistics! I had to wait till the end to find the bit that interested me. Why? Guess what? That’s the same reason as me. I have “met” so many interesting people who have become “blog friends” and learned so much from their experiences. One contact in France morphed into a couple of friends for my husband and I.

. . . I am happy with virtual friendship. People (especially me) cover a wider spectrum of opinions, interests, worldviews than what presented or interacted in the blog.

This forum allows for something that is difficult to do in real life; limit oneself to specific areas of interests and associated interactions. Sure, there are success stories, but full spectrum interactions are a lot more difficult. For instance, a large number of my followers list themselves as ‘spiritual’ and even outright religious. Others hold positions in political and social issues that differ from my own.

The fact we can interact over fiction, photography, or in your case gardening and photography is enough to form a bond. To go beyond that (per my experience) requires a significant investment in interpersonal relationships.

This is made especially difficult by the fact I find myself less and less tolerant of certain things, and the fact I can’t just let “stuff go” (apparently a staple of successful friendships).

So, virtual friendships are a good way for me to go (and even then, there have been missteps).

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I look forward to your continued documenting of spring . . . even as a blizzard is raging outside my window.